The Dovekeepers Pdf is a Historical Fiction Magical Realism Book about the Jewish People Killings in Ancient Israel, written by the very Talented Alice Hoffman. Over five years in the writing, The Dovekeepers is Alice Hoffman’s most ambitious and mesmerizing novel, a tour de force of imagination and research, set in ancient Israel.
The Dovekeepers Book Summary
In 70 C.E., nine hundred Jews held out for months against armies of Romans on Masada, a mountain in the Judean desert. According to the ancient historian Josephus, two women and five children survived. Based on this tragic and iconic event, Hoffman’s novel is a spellbinding tale of four extraordinarily bold, resourceful, and sensuous women, each of whom has come to Masada by a different path. Yael’s mother died in childbirth, and her father, an expert assassin, never forgave her for that death. Revka, a village baker’s wife, watched the horrifically brutal murder of her daughter by Roman soldiers; she brings to Masada her young grandsons, rendered mute by what they have witnessed. Aziza is a warrior’s daughter, raised as a boy, a fearless rider and an expert marksman who finds passion with a fellow soldier. Shirah, born in Alexandria, is wise in the ways of ancient magic and medicine, a woman with uncanny insight and power.
The lives of these four complex and fiercely independent women intersect in the desperate days of the siege. All are dovekeepers, and all are also keeping secrets—about who they are, where they come from, who fathered them, and whom they love. The Dovekeepers is Alice Hoffman’s masterpiece.
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About Alice Hoffman Author Of The Dovekeepers Pdf Book
Alice Hoffman Author Of The Dovekeepers Pdf has written more than thirty works of fiction, including Practical Magic, The Dovekeepers, Magic Lessons, and, most recently, The Book of Magic. She lives in Boston. Visit her website: www.alicehoffman.com
The Dovekeepers pdf, Paperback, Hardcover Book Information
- ASIN : B0068EO6HK
- Publisher : Scribner; 0 edition (October 4, 2011)
- Language : English
- Hardcover : 512 pages
- ISBN-10 : 145161747X
- ISBN-13 : 978-1451617474
- Item Weight : 1.58 pounds
- Dimensions : 1.5 x 6.5 x 9.5 inches
- Best Sellers Rank: #4,632,188 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #2,425 in Jewish Historical Fiction
- #5,199 in Jewish Literature & Fiction
- #10,510 in Deals in Books
- Customer Reviews: 4.4 out of 5 stars 3,318 ratings
The Dovekeepers Book Reviews
TOP 500 REVIEWERVINE VOICE
5.0 out of 5 stars Historical Fiction at Its Finest: A Novel That Transports Readers to a Brutal, Terrifying Time
Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on September 19, 2022
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Quite simply, this novel astonished me.
It’s just words on a page, but those words are so powerful, so entrancing, so visceral that they seemingly affected every one of my senses. I felt the searing heat of the desert, tasted the gritty sand in my mouth, smelled the lilies, heard the doves cooing, and saw the mountaintop palace-fortress of Masada that was built on a rock cliff impossibly high in the air. This book is a literary masterpiece that will haunt me for some time to come.
Written by Alice Hoffman, this is a novel based on the siege of Masada. In 70CE, nine hundred Jewish rebels occupied the mountain fortress of Masada in Judea that had been built by King Herod. They were holding out against the Romans, who were killing Jews en masse all over the region. The ancient historian Josephus writes that as the Romans prepared to attack Masada, the Jews entrenched there committed mass suicide with only two women and five children surviving. From this spare bit of information, Hoffman has woven a majestic tale of four women of different ages and backgrounds, all of whom care for the doves toiling daily in the dovecotes. Their stories, focused largely on their religious faith and mystical superstitions, the danger and joy of sex, and the brutality and violence of the constant battles of war that surround them, combine to tell the big story of life and death on Masada from 70CE to 73CE:
• Yael, the daughter of a cold-blooded assassin, whose mother died in childbirth and whose father has blamed her for this her entire life.
• Revka, the beloved wife of a baker who was brutally murdered by the Romans in their village. Fleeing into the desert from this destruction, she witnesses the horrific rape and murder of her daughter.
• Aziza, the daughter of a warrior, who carries deep secrets about her true identity.
• Shirah, a wise woman who is labeled a witch for her seemingly magical potions and powers.
The book’s splendor is in the tone and voice of the writing, which combine to be so powerful that mere words transport the reader to this ancient time and place.
This is a story of survival and the strength of women who continually suffer in a brutal and terrifying time. This is a story of feminism and friendship. This is a story of love and pain. This is historical fiction at its finest.
VINE VOICE
5.0 out of 5 stars A Beguiling Saga That Will Remain in Your Heart and Soul
Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on November 23, 2019
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4.5 Stars
”We came like doves across the desert. In a time when there was nothing but death, we were grateful for anything, and most grateful of all when we awoke to another day.”
”We had been wandering for so long I forgot what it was like to live within walls or sleep through the night. In that time I lost all I might have possessed if Jerusalem had not fallen: a husband, a family, a future of my own. My girlhood disappeared in the desert. The person I’d once been vanished as I wrapped myself in white when the dust rose in clouds. We were nomads, leaving behind beds and belongings, rugs and brass pots. Now our house was the house of the desert, black at night, brutally white at noon.
“They say the truest beauty is in the harshest land and that God can be found there by those with open eyes.”
The stories of four different women eventually merge, as this begins in 70 CE, with the story of Yael – the daughter of Yosef bar Elhanan, an assassin associated with the Sicarii, a splinter group of the Jewish Zealots. Yael’s mother had died in giving birth to her, for which her father blames Yael. Still, when they flee Jerusalem after the destruction of the Temple, her father takes Yael with him, traveling with Jachim ben Simon, another assassin along with the members of his family.
”Everywhere I walked my fate walked with me, sewn to my feet with red thread. All that will ever be has already been written long before it happens.”
Revka is the wife of the Baker, and her story begins as her husband, a good and pious man, has left loaves in the oven and is off with the men while Revka is just beginning her day with her two grandsons, when their world is shattered.
”Blessed is He who spoke, and the world came into being. Just as creation began with words so, too, did our world come apart in silence. None of us spoke. The boys because they could not, my son-in-law because he would not, myself because there were no words worth speaking aloud. The world was broken, and there was only one road that remained, splayed open before us as if made of bones.”
”We had no choice but to go forward, as only emptiness was around us. The following day we did so. I had to leave that unmarked place, abandoning the last of my husband’s essence. I carried my loss as my burden; it weighed me down and made me slow. I could not keep peace with the tired donkeys who bleakly made their way. The boys ran back to me and grabbed my hands and urged me on. Because of them I continued, but God must have known it had crossed my mind to stay behind. I wanted to lie down beside the rocks and dream of the Baker, to call for him to come back to me, even if it meant giving up with world. Perhaps that was the sin I committed. I forgot that even the worst of lives is a treasure.”
Revka and Yael both arrive in Masada, a fortress set on a mountaintop. There they both come to work in the dovecote, collecting eggs and distributing the compost they gather. Among those in Masada are Shirah and her daughters, one of which is named Aziza, the other Nahara.
Aziza was a daughter cherished by her mother, and loved by a father figure that taught her how to protect herself, to be capable of fighting to defend herself, her sister and mother.
”But no matter how you might bow before others, my sister, the bond between us will last all eternity, until we meet again in a place where nothing can separate us, as it was on the night you were born, in your father’s tent, with my breath inside you and my life the thread that kept you in this world.”
The fourth story belongs to Shirah, where we learn of her youth as a beloved and privileged child, a daughter of a consort of the high priests, a woman who studies medicine, spells, and the powers of amulets and charms – a keshaphim, a woman tied to Shechinah, the feminine characteristic of God. A woman taught everything by her mother about this world, everything necessary to carrying into the World-to-Come. She knew the cure for a scorpion bite, that the “nectar of the spiky blue flower of the hyssop dabbed on the wrist would ward off evil, a woman who wore the tooth of a black dog around her neck for protection from wild beasts, reciting incantations when digging for the roots of henbane, a holy plant.
”Inside the locked box was a notebook of parchment upon which my mother had written the many secrets she had accumulated over the years. It was a recipe book for the human heart, for our people believe that all we know and all we have experience is contained there.”
”We were no different from the doves
above us.
We could not speak or cry, but when
there was
no choice we discovered we could fly. If
you
want a reason, take this: We yearned
for our
portion of the sky.”
4.0 out of 5 stars A very long drama, but interesting
Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on June 25, 2017
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I was fascinated by the descriptions of the various Hebrew tribal customs, the deeply superstitious bias in religious laws, and the role of women in particular. The author does write well, and the rituals and customs of those far off times, the ruthless barbarities, and the harshness they endured are lovingly described. The four women are so different and despite being bound by stifling customs, overcome huge obstacles and find each other in that tragic fortress, Masada. This is a very well described drama, and I enjoyed it.
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